Thursday, July 5, 2012

Only to Find that ....

I started off the holiday early yesterday by stopping in at an 24-hour grocery store at 2am in the morning only to find nothing special on sale in celebration of the 4th. Oh well, back to watching Wimbledon on tv from of all places from England on our Independence Day. They're 11 hours ahead of us in Hawaii. I like watching the French Open on tv better because the French are 12-hours ahead of Hawaii and you just switch a.m. (Hawaii) for p.m. (Paris). Anyways, the big controversy at Wimbledon revolves on when is it okay to close the roof on the Centre Court stadium. All the other minor stadiums at the Wimbledon complex are open courts with no retractable roofs which means if there's a heavy enough drizzle, the matches in progress come to a halt at the digressions of the players. I believe that England has been experiencing its wettest eary-Summer on record. In that regards, a retractable roof would be something real handy. Yet the tournament officials want to preserve the tournament's tradition as an outdoor event and the officials just can't seem to get their act together and make up their mind on how bad the rain has to be before making the call and that's putting it as an understatement. More like Parliament.

It takes only 10-minutes to actually close the roof but another half-hour to fill the stadium with air conditioning, so 40-minutes. This is at Centre Court and thus it involves marque matches. Unbeknownst to the numbskull officials, people are watching the matches live from all over the world. To me, if the forecast predicts even a hint of drizzle just close the $125 million roof ahead of schedule and be done with their indecision. If you have to open the roof while the match is underway, it takes only 10-minutes flat to re-open the roof, meanwhile the players still can play with the roof closed, on the other hand, grass courts are slippery even after a slight drizzle, and an open roof risk delays. This kind of mentality is probably why the British lost the Revolutionary War. Otherwise we wouldn't be celebrating the 4th as it is.

Last night, went to the beach to watch the fireworks display only to find that the aerial fireworks were shot up in the sky too close to the shore or not far enough offshore to be seen in full view from Waikiki beach. The fireworks are set off at Magic Island a mile-and-a-half as the the crow flies from Waikiki beach. From that point, the Waikiki shoreline curves inland, so about half of the fireworks' red glare and bombs bursting in air were hidden behind the hotels that you see in my blog's banner. I haven't watched the fireworks for two years so I have no idea when all this happened. I do remember that I could watch it from the stairwell of my apartment building and it was better a view from the stairwell than the beach tonight.

RimPac is currently underway off Hawaii waters. Some 25,000 sailors from different Pacific rim nations, plus England and France navies. Every year, every 2 years, or something like that. New Zealand isn't allowed to dock their 2 ships at Pearl Harbor. That's because New Zealand doesn't allow the US to dock our ships at New Zealand harbors because New Zealanders are anti-nukes. The thing about it is that while New Zealand indeed have to dock their 2 ships at Honolulu Harbor, it's on the downtown Honolulu side of the harbor, which works out well for the sailors on leave, instead of being docked at Pearl Harbor which is far and away from Honolulu and Waikiki which takes 2-hours to get back to base by bus and too far to walk. Whereas the New Zealand ships are docked in the middle of Honolulu.

Kay- here's a case where the law of unintended consequences works in the favor of the NZ sailors and the people making all the noise don't really know what they're talking about. After sailing all the way from NZ and I would think that a downtown parking stall right on Nimitz Hyw. is ideal for seafarers on shore leave. The NZ sailors aren't complaining. We can see the Pearl Harbor fireworks from Waikiki beach, in miniature.

Hey Ron, you won't believe it. The Sr. Manager of Redbox replied to your question. Come and look. What a surprise! Looks like you can return the DVDs at ANY Redbox kiosk. Now if they'd just improve their movie selection.